Smiles of a Summer Night (Desperate Housewives)

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“Smiles of a Summer Night”
Desperate Housewives episode

Bree attempts to find Katherine's recipe
Episode no. Season 4
Episode 2
Written by Bob Daily &
Matt Berry
Directed by David Grossman
Production no. 402
Original airdate October 7, 2007
Episode chronology
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"Now You Know" "The Game"
List of Desperate Housewives episodes

“Smiles of a Summer Night” is the 71st episode of the ABC dramedy series Desperate Housewives. It was written by Bob Daily and Matt Berry and directed by David Grossman. It is the second episode of the show’s fourth season and aired on October 7, 2007.

Contents

[edit] Guest starring

[edit] Plot

Julie asks Susan if she can go to a party, however Mike tells Susan that he would rather Susan forbade her daughter to go due to the fact he has seen some crazy parties in the house where Julie is going. Even though Susan had already given Julie permission to go to the party, she sides with Mike and Julie is banned. However Susan decides to go behind Mike’s back and tells Julie she just wanted Mike to feel as if he were part of the decision-making process, and she allows Julie to attend the party. Later that night Mike tells Susan he drove past the house earlier on and saw things like girls running around topless, people staggering around drunk and music blaring. Susan says she needs to run to the store, and she runs to the party to pick up Julie and Dylan. Mike later finds out about Susan’s lie and tells Susan that he respects her decisions on how to raise Julie how she wants, as Julie is her child.

Lynette Scavo asks during her lunch if anyone would like to attend chemotherapy with her, seeing as she kicked Tom out for being too emotional. Bree, Susan and even Katherine all offer to do it; however Gabrielle pretends to not hear the question and Lynette confronts her about it. Gabrielle gives in and decides to go with Lynette. However when she is there to entertain Lynette, she seems uncomfortable and awkward, constantly finds reasons to leave the room and disappear for hours. Seeing Lynette’s frustration and hurt, Gabrielle reveals that when she was five, her father died from cancer, and her mother told her not to cry because she wanted her husband to feel well dying and not see his daughter cry. She said she smiled all night – even after he had died – and later made a great career (as a model) where all she had to do was smile. She fights back tears when she tells Lynette she is so scared of losing her that she cannot pretend to smile. Lynette is choked up and promises her she will not die.

Dylan is walking by Mrs. McClusky's, and she strikes up a conversation with Dylan about how she used to always see her playing on her tricycle around the neighborhood with her father close behind. Later, she waits until Katherine leaves then grabs her family photo album. She comes across a baby picture of herself that didn't look at all like her, but hides it quickly when her mom comes into the room.

During a lunch that Katherine organizes for ill Lynette, everyone tries the pie Bree has brought. Susan and Gabrielle tell her that it is the best she has ever made. However, when Bree tries it, she realizes that it is not hers and stares over at Katherine. Katherine comes clean and announces that she swapped hers with Bree’s so that everyone could try it. Bree, furious about Katherine's deceit and largely irate about Katherine upstaging her pie, desperately tries to figure out Katherine’s secret ingredient. When that doesn’t work she gives Katherine her meat pie recipe and then asks nicely for Katherine's lemon meringue pie recipe. Katherine refuses, but Bree keeps pushing it. They get into a verbal tussle. In her determination, Bree breaks into the Mayfair house to steal it, only to find that Katherine padlocks her recipe box. Instead of giving up, Bree gets a pair of boltcutters from Mike, but is trapped when Katherine and her family come home. Before she escapes unnoticed, she overhears a conversation between Dylan and her mother. Dylan tries to find out more about her father and why he left the family when she was younger. Katherine tells her not to listen to a thing the neighbours tell her about her father. When Dylan calls Katherine a monster, she slaps her hard across the face and Dylan runs to her room as her stepfather Adam watches. Katherine, Dylan and Adam do not notice that Bree is listening to the entire conversation.

Edie Britt blackmails her boyfriend Carlos by threatening to tell people about his illegal bank account if he won't marry her. Carlos accepts but afterwards pays some sinister looking man in a bar to stop Edie from ruining his life. The stranger promises to “take care of her."

In a flashback of Susan’s about the day on which Katherine abrubtly left Wisteria Lane, former neighbor Mary Alice Young and Susan walk up to Katherine’s house questioning a younger looking Katherine as to why she, Dylan and her husband are suddenly moving. A very nervous-looking Katherine tells them that she got a job in Chicago and she refuses to let Susan get Julie to say goodbye to Dylan. A crashing noise is heard upstairs and Katherine tells them she is really going to miss them and urgently shuts the door.

[edit] Quotes

Katherine: You can't believe what Karen McCluskey tells you. She's an old woman. Practically senile.
Dylan: She didn't sound senile to me.
Adam: Dylan, maybe this is not the time, OK?
Dylan: You said my father didn't care about me. But she says he came here and wanted to see me. Why would you not tell me that?
(They enter the house. Bree is just about to cut the lock.)
Dylan: He's my father and I deserve to know.
Katherine: The only thing you need to know about your father is that he was a monster.
Dylan: I'll decide that for myself. Where is he?
Katherine: I don't know.
Dylan: You're lying.
Adam: No, she's not.
Dylan: Yes, she is. She's been lying to me my whole life. I'm starting to think that maybe you're the monster!
(Katherine slaps Dylan. Bree is listening to everything. Dylan runs upstairs.)
Katherine: She can't talk to me that way. Not after everything I've done for her.
Adam: Well, maybe that's the problem. She doesn't know what you've done for her.
Katherine: Nobody does. And it's going to stay that way.
Adam: Are you sure? She's just going to keep asking questions.
Katherine: Then we'd better start coming up with better lies.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Title reference

[edit] International Titles

  • Polish: Druga Strona Uśmiechu (The Second Side of the Smile)
  • Italian: L'ombra di un Sorriso (A Smile's Shadow)
  • German: Kuchenschlacht (Pie Battle)
  • Hungarian: Pite-csata (Pie Battle)

[edit] Reception and ratings

Smiles of a Summer Night scored an 11.7/17 in Nielsen ratings with 17.817 million viewers tuning in,[1] down from the season premiere "Now You Know", which scored 12.2/18 with a total of 19.317 million viewers.[2]. A total of 13.08 Million viewers watched this episode in the UL finishing 5th in weekley ratings and on it's cable debut it had 4.55 Million.

Smiles of a Summer Night made it's terrestrial debut in the UK on April 2, 2008, with the cable debut a mere 3 days earlier on March 30. The Terrestrial debut had achieved 4th place and 2.77 million viewers. A dramatic 603,000 viewer fall (equivalent to 23%) since Now You Know. However, on E4 the episode was played over 2 weeks, firstly as a "sneak peak", then as a "encore" the following sunday. On it's original airing, straight after the encore of Now You Know The episode's numbers had doubled since the encore to 727,000. The number had risen by a massive 206%

[edit] Critical reviews

TV Squad writer Isabel Carreau was quite pleased with Smiles of a Summer Night. Carreau called Bree’s sub-plot “delicious” and claimed that it was another reason for calling Bree her favourite character from the programme. She was critical of Susan’s behaviour, noting that she should act more mature.[3]

[edit] Trivia

In episode 3.21 titled “Into the Woods”, Edie states her birthday is "two weeks from now", which would be roughly on the Season 3 finale episode. However, her birthday is celebrated in this episode when we're told it has been "one month later" in the Season 4 premier.

[edit] References

  1. ^ NBC picks off Sunday win Zap2it Retrieved 2007-10-08
  2. ^ Premieres carry ABC Sunday Zap2it Retrieved 2007-10-02
  3. ^ Desperate Housewives: Smiles of a Summer Night TV Squad Retrieved 2007-10-08

[edit] External Links

Read the episode commentary from Thinking About The Box [1]

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